Transport vouchers, meal benefits, health insurance and home-office allowances: what the law requires, what is optional and how each one affects payroll.
Mandatory by law: less than it seems
The list of benefits truly required by the CLT is short: transport vouchers, paid vacation with the one-third, the 13th salary and FGTS. Everything else — meal vouchers, health insurance, allowances — is optional by law, though it can become mandatory through the category’s collective bargaining agreement.
That is HR’s first checkpoint: before defining the package, read the collective agreement. Many categories have meal vouchers, food baskets or health insurance required by collective norm, with defined minimum amounts.
Transport voucher: the 6% rule
The transport voucher is mandatory for any employee who requests it for the home-to-work commute on public transport. The employer may deduct up to 6% of the base salary — whatever exceeds that limit is borne by the company.
Example: an employee earning R$ 2,000 who spends R$ 240 a month on transport has a maximum deduction of R$ 120 (6%); the other R$ 120 is a company cost. If actual spending is below the 6%, only the real amount is deducted. The voucher is indemnity-natured: it stays out of the INSS, FGTS and IRRF bases.
Meal and food vouchers: the role of PAT
Meal and food vouchers are not required by law, but they rank among the most valued benefits. The important technical point is PAT (the Worker’s Food Program): for enrolled companies, the benefit does not form part of salary, which keeps charges off the granted amount.
Outside PAT, habitually paying meal money in cash may be treated as a salary item, with effects on INSS, FGTS, vacation and the 13th. When the employee co-pays, the share usually stays within 20% of the benefit’s value.
Health insurance and the home-office allowance
Health insurance is not required by the CLT, but it is frequently mandatory under collective agreements — and it is one of the benefits that weighs most when accepting an offer. The employee’s co-payment appears on the payslip as a deduction item, with no salary nature.
For remote work, Law 14,442/2022 consolidated that amounts paid as a home-office allowance (internet, power, equipment) are indemnity-natured when set in the contract or an addendum: they do not form part of compensation and carry no charges.
How benefits enter the payroll calculation
Each benefit behaves differently on the payroll: the transport voucher creates a deduction capped at 6%, meal vouchers may create a co-payment, health insurance creates a deduction that varies by dependents, and indemnity items stay out of the INSS, FGTS and IRRF bases. Misclassifying any of these distorts calculation bases and produces incorrect payments.
This is where automation makes the difference: well-configured recurring benefits enter every period on their own, with the correct nature and the legal limits applied.
Configure once, calculate right every time
In Avos, you register the company’s benefits as recurring pay items — with the deduction rule, the cap and the tax nature — and every payroll is born with everything applied. The payslip comes out clear for the employee, and the calculation bases stay correct across all periods.